Friday, July 5, 2013

Have you ever wanted something so bad, and it just is not happening for you? You feel discouraged and disappointed that all of your efforts have not panned out. You wonder if you are doing the right thing? You wonder if you made the right career choice? You wonder if you “shoulda, coulda, woulda?”

Persevering in difficult situations means that you need to continue your efforts to achieve something despite difficulties, failure or opposition. You need to try to stay the course.

Positive thinking is really important during a challenging time. The research shows the benefits of staying positive:

• People who were pessimistic had a nearly 20 percent higher risk of dying over a 30-year period than those who
were optimistic.
• People who kept track of their gratitude once a week were more upbeat and had fewer physical complaints than
others.
• People who obsessively repeated negative thoughts and behaviors were able to change their unhealthy patterns
and their brain activity actually changed too.

By staying positive, one can look at the situation differently. How have I grown from this? What have I learned? Have I developed new skills?

Appreciating the positive things going on in our lives can also help put things into perspective. Being grateful for what we have is one way to practice being positive. Several years ago during a particularly challenging time in my job, I began a gratitude journal on my IPhone. Every day for about 2 months, I wrote what I was grateful for…sometimes it was just that I got out of bed!!! I still keep the journal today; After practicing gratitude for a while it becomes a part of your thinking.

Laughing decreases pain, it may help your heart and lungs, promotes muscle relaxation and can reduce anxiety. It helps defuse a tense situation. I can attest to this!! The other night at about 1:00 a.m., we had a bat get into our bedroom and my husband was chasing it around our room trying to swipe it down…I was freaked at the time, but we laughed for hours, which I think was a message to us to chill out!

When we focus on clearly defined goals, know what we want to accomplish and have an action plan, we are able to persist.